(CNN) -- Every spring Halloween meets haute couture at the Carnival of Venice. Culminating March 4 after nearly a month of masked frivolity, Italy's most popular festival draws up to three million visitors annually. Wearing feathered headdresses, flowing capes and, most importantly, a bevy of bejeweled masks, they enjoy a giant masquerade party that spills onto the streets and into the canals. The Piazza San Marco is the epicenter of the action, especially during preliminary rounds of the Maschera più bella contest for the best masked costume. Every day dozens of masked contestants stomp down the runway of the Gran Teatro, a temporary outdoor theater, hoping to make the grand final. Costumes skew toward the elaborate, with men and women dressed as brightly-colored court jesters, kabuki princesses, and glittering animals.

Today the city uses the carnival to showcase
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Venetian culture, which includes a long and proud history of mask masking.


(CNN)  -- Luxembourg's Andy Schleck dramatically revived his Tour de France hopes with a stunning victory on an epic 18th stage which finished at the summit of the imposing Col du Galibier. At 2,645 meters, it was the highest-ever stage finish on the Tour, and Leopard Trek's Schleck certainly hit the heights with a brave solo victory. He broke clear of a group of favorites on the Col d'lzoard with 60km remaining, reeling in the fragmented remains of a breakaway, before crossing the line alone over two minutes clear of his chasers. Schleck, written off after muted performances in the Pyrenees and the first stage in the Alps, said he had decided to take his courage in his hands.

But he failed by 15 seconds to take the yellow off the shoulders of French hope Thomas Voeckler, who again performed heroics to take fifth on a stage which effectively marked the end of
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Alberto Contador's chances of retaining his crown.


(CNN) -- "Sometimes I ask myself, why me? Why did this have to happen again?" says 31-year-old Andile from the Khayelitsha township in Cape Town, South Africa. "But the problem is I could have got it anywhere, on the bus, in a taxi, in my work. It's everywhere." Andile has extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a form of the airborne disease that is resistant to the four main groups of drugs used to treat it, meaning treatment can take years and requires alternative drugs that have more side effects. He's had tuberculosis for more than two years but it's not the first time he's been infected.

For
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TB, the origins lie in incomplete treatment regimens where people did not complete their course of antibiotics due either to poor health systems or personal preference or complacency.